1. Initial introduction or release
2. Major hype and influx of greed money. <- AI is here now
3. Failure to live up to the hype, resulting in the tech becoming a punchline and gobs of money lost
4. Renaissance of the tech as its true potential is eventually realized, which doesn't match the original hype but ends up very useful
5. Iteration and improvement with no clear "done" or "achieved" milestone, it just becomes part of society
The bombardment of charlatans taking advantage of the term, coupled with commercials everywhere suggests we will soon hit stage 3 for AI. The Super Bowl commercials are usually the tipping point.Crypto is at stage 3 now.
Not all technologies make it to steps 4-5.
Hell, I remember when social media followed the same path. And ecommerce before it. Or the web in general before that. And on and on it goes.
Likewise when breathless reporters keep asking non-AI companies what their AI strategy is, you know you're firmly in step 2. Remember when Walmart was expected to have a "metaverse strategy"?
Also worth noting that many (most?) technologies do not have a step 4 or 5. They're just permanently/indefinitely dead after the hype train goes off the rails (see: personal jetpacks)